


Bad Night

by artemisscribe



Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, F/M, Future Fic, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, Major Character Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-11
Updated: 2017-05-11
Packaged: 2018-10-30 19:46:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10883688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artemisscribe/pseuds/artemisscribe
Summary: Kayo's worst nightmare becomes a reality as she waits to see if Scott will survive a life threatening injury, an emotional trauma made all the worse now that he's more than just family to her.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ScribeOfRED](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScribeOfRED/gifts).



He’s tense. Tense and restless. Any observer of Scott Tracy in this vast ballroom would have lost count of the number of times he’s checked his watch in the last 5 minutes, every single fibre of his being is screaming  _ I don’t want to be here _ . And when Scott can’t maintain his charming false interest, that’s when it’s time to go.

 

Kayo is close at hand, but not in his space, always right where he can see her if he needs to look up and give the small, precise nod.  _ Okay, let’s go. _

 

The nod starts a ripple effect. Some of their people have already seen it and begin to move before she gives the signal. To a casual observer Scott Tracy has been alone in the centre of a large party, but it’s only now as he leaves that the concentric circles of minders become apparent as his bodyguards make themselves known, the planets orbiting his sun.

 

These days Scott only enters and leaves a building through the front door if there’s a photo opportunity involved. He’s far more familiar with kitchens and the warren of service corridors that make up the inner workings of grand hotels and vast skyscrapers. This one looks exactly like all of the others as they pass through it at a brisk walk, his view constricted by the five or so members of his entourage encircled around him.

 

He’s trying to pay attention to something his PA is saying, but he’s too tired to register the man as anything other than white noise. The only thing he really notices as they pass through the door of the kitchen entrance where the car is waiting for them is the brush of Kayo’s hand as she passes ahead of him. Perhaps he might have noticed something earlier if it hadn’t been for that electric moment of contact, but all he can think about is the tingle of his palm, so much so that when the first shot rings out he’s not even sure if it’s real.

 

Kayo will be sure though. He knows that Kayo sensed it coming moments before it does, sees the vehicle that shouldn’t be there in her peripherals. Sees the ready stance of the first shooter. Her reaction is instantaneous, her sharp cry of “Gun!” as she turns back to Scott, grabbing him by the collar and dragging him, bent double towards the car as her team close ranks around them.

 

They’re perfectly trained, of course they are, Kayo trained them and her father trained her. These men and women practice dying for him, and he hears someone cry out amongst the hail of gunfire before Kayo has him shoved in the footwell of the car. She piles in on top of him, roughly shoving him down as she calls out to the driver to go. Of course he already has his foot down and they’re speeding out into the night heading for whatever safe place Kayo has carefully selected in this city.

 

He’s surprisingly short of breath as she finally lets him sit up, but he puts that down to the adrenaline.

 

“You okay?” he asks, wincing as he stretches bruised ribs, he must have knocked them as he got in the car.

 

“Yeah,” she says. “You?”

 

“Yeah,” he nods, clearing his throat, “Yeah I’m fine.”

 

He is. He’s shaking and his side hurts but he’s fine. He clears his throat again, trying to shift the tickle at the back of his throat as his hand goes to cradle his side. The pain is growing. He clears his throat again and this time it turns into a wet cough. He sees flecks of something dark leave his mouth and spatter lightly across the seat in front of him, just as his fingertips find wetness on his shirt.

 

“Kay-” he gasps before he coughs again.

 

He looks at her looking at him, watches the colour drain from her face as she sees the glistening drops on his lips, sees his fingers come away from his side, slick with blood,

 

“Oh my God!” she breathes, as he reaches out for her.

 

He hears her desperate cry for the driver to change route, to get him to a hospital now, for him to stay awake, but as her voice gets more panicked it also gets further away, his hearing failing, darkness creeping into the edge of his vision.

  
He doesn’t hear her call his name, just sees her lips form the word. And then the world goes black.


	2. Chapter 2

“Tanusha?”

 

Kayo looks up from her bloodstained palms to see her father stood in the doorway of the hospital waiting room.

 

“Ayah,” she breathes, standing and letting herself be pulled into the firm reassuring hug she’s desperately needed for the last four hours.

 

“Shush Cinta,” he soothes, stroking her back, “shush.”

 

“Oh Ayah, I’m sorry,” she says, pulling away sharply, “I’m covered in-” _blood, Scott’s blood, I’m covered in Scott’s blood_ , she can’t say it.

 

“I brought clothes,” he says softly, pressing a bag into her hand, “And food. Even in places this expensive the food is hideous.”

 

“I can’t eat, Ayah, I’ll be sick.”

“You have to eat Tanusha,” he tells her, “You need to eat. _He_ needs you to eat.”

 

She gives him a small nod, lets him make her take the bag, usher her towards the bathroom.

 

She tries not to look at herself in the mirror as she washes the browning blood from her arms. She knows she looks like shit, her dress stained, her eyes red, make-up smudged across her face from crying, no, sobbing, not crying, as quietly as she could, sat alone in the hospital waiting room.

 

Every last fear, every last warning had come true. She fell in love with him and now he’s dying and it’s her fault. If she had spent less time worrying about how little he’d slept last night, how much coffee he’d had at breakfast, that he used to date the woman he’d sat next to at dinner, and done her damn job instead, then he wouldn’t be fighting for his life right now.

 

They’d warned her, they’d told her that it would end in tears. That she couldn’t keep him and her job, she had to pick one, but it had all been so natural. She hadn’t even noticed what was happening to them until suddenly one day she woke up and found herself in a relationship with her best friend. It had been so easy to seek comfort in each other, to mutually satisfy the most basic of needs, but you can’t grow up in each other’s pockets like they had and keep sex to ‘Just Sex’, it was always going to be more.

 

And now she was losing the man she loved, and proving categorically that she couldn’t do her job. She doesn’t know how she can face the family after this, how she can live with the shame, or the grief.

 

She has identities ready to go, she could walk out of here and disappear into the city and never be seen again. It would be easier than having to look his brothers in the eye, his father. Easier than facing her own failure.

 

“He’s going to die,” she tells herself, saying it out loud to her reflection, staring herself down and forcing herself to confront this new reality.

 

He’s been in surgery for four hours and they can’t stop the bleeding. They’re barely pumping blood into him faster than he’s losing it and the doctors have told her to prepare for the worst. But she can’t think about that now, she has to put on these clean clothes and go back out there to eat the food her father brought her, and she can’t do that if she thinks about him bleeding to death on the operating table.

 

Her father, damn him, is right. She feels better in jeans and the soft oversized sweater Scott bought her for Christmas. Alright the sweater Penny bought her, but Scott wrote the label so it’s the same thing really. She splashes some water on her face, forces herself to take a deep breath, and goes back out to the waiting room.

 

“Better,” Kyrano smiles, opening out an arm to invite her over. “Now come and sit. Eat. Tell me how he is.”

 

Kayo settles in beside him and lets him press the tupperware box of food into her hands,

 

“Well, um… he’s still in surgery, and they’re having some trouble stabilizing him,” she explains, cracking the lid on the box, “Where did you find murtabak at this time of night?”

 

“I made it,” he says proudly.

 

“Am I being punished?” she asks sarcastically.

 

“You’re not funny,” he says, though he does smile softly at her.

 

“Laugh at my joke Ayah, I’m having a bad day.”

 

He obliges her, laughing as he presses a kiss to her forehead,

 

“No Cinta, yesterday was a bad day. Today will be better, now eat up.”

 

“I can’t eat, I feel sick.”

 

“Because you’re hungry and tired,” he tells her firmly, “So you’ll eat, and you’ll sleep a little, and everything will not feel so terrible. Besides I brought kaya and crackers.”

 

“Really!” Kayo gasps, managing to smile, “Why didn’t you say so?”

 

“Because you’re not allowed any until you’ve eaten that.” He nods at the fried pancake he’s given her, “It’s chicken, it’s good.”

 

She takes a bite, and it is; it’s so good, and she’s so hungry, which is a surprise. Sometimes she thinks her father knows her too well, but she can’t bring herself to think of that as a bad thing. Especially since that’s a connection that goes both ways. She watches him sip a cup of ginger tea as she eats, looking back at her with that calm open expression that compels you to talk to him. It’s very hard to be silent around her father, you feel an overwhelming urge to fill his silences; they’re deafeningly loud.

 

“I made this for Scott once,” she says, taking another bite of her food, trying to find something neutral to talk about.

 

“ _You_ _cooked?_ ” her father asks, looking far more amused at the idea than he has any right to be.

 

“It’s only murtabak!” she argues,

 

“But still, that means you actually know where the stove is.”

 

She tries to glare at him, but it’s hard to do with a mouth full of fried omelette and chicken,

 

“I’m good at things.”

 

“Yes you are,” her father says.

 

“Not my job though apparently.” Oh and there it is. Try as she might, there’s always something about sitting with her father that makes her say what she’s really thinking.

 

“Tanusha, you did your job,” he tells her. “I’ve seen that street, it’s littered with bullets, it’s a miracle that only two of your group were hit.”

 

“Yes but one of them was Scott!”

 

“And you got him in the car and got him to a hospital, exactly as you were supposed to.”

 

“Ayah he stopped breathing!” It comes out as a sob, and another quickly follows, and then another until she’s crying so hard that every single breath shakes her body.

 

She’s vaguely aware of her father taking the box off her lap and folding her into his arms, rocking her as she lets out four hours of fear and pain and grief. There’s no rush, no platitudes, no false promises that Scott will be okay. He simply holds her and lets her cry, just like she needs.

 

“I had to keep his heart beating,” she says eventually, her voice weak and quiet, “I broke his ribs. They said even if he lives they don’t know- they don’t….”

 

“You kept him alive,” Kyrano tells her, resettling her against his chest and wiping away her tears, “You did your job. If it were anyone else there with him he’d be dead on the sidewalk. He only listens to you. You did your job.”

 

She gives him a little nod. She can’t argue with that. They’d tried to give Scott a different head of detail, but he was insufferably unco-operative for anyone but her.

 

“He’ll do what you ask because he knows that keeps you safe too,” Kyrano continues, “And he loves you enough to want you safe. He’d hate to know you’re crying over him.”

 

“I know.”

 

“Do you want more food?” he asks, but she shakes her head. “You sure? Not even some kaya?”

 

“No,” she insists. “Thank you. Although I think I could manage some tea, just to settle my stomach.”

 

That seems to satisfy him, and he pours her a cup of ginger tea from the battered old thermos she’s tried to throw out a thousand times.

 

“Here,” he says, passing her the cup. “Drink. Then sleep.”

  
“Oh I don’t think I could sleep,” Kayo says, “I don’t know if I could ever manage to sleep again.”

 

*

 

As usual he knows her better than she knows herself, because the next thing she knows she’s blinking awake as he squeezes her shoulder,

 

“Tanusha,” he says softly, “Tanusha come on now, there’s news.”

 

There’s sunlight creeping over the horizon out the window and as Kayo blinks awake she hopes that it’s the dawn light mixing with the fluorescent strip lighting that makes Dr Wong look so tired and washed out.

 

“What happened?” Kayo asks, suddenly wide awake and full of anxiety, “Is he okay? Is he-” her breath catches in her throat, she doesn’t want to say the word.

 

“He’s out of surgery,” Dr Wong says, raising a placating hand, “We patched the artery and fixed the collapsed lung and we’ve also managed to remove the bullet.”

 

“Is he awake?” Kayo asks.

 

“Not yet,” Dr Wong says as she sits down next to Kayo, “We’re keeping him under while he’s still on the ventilator so we don’t yet know what effect the oxygen deprivation has had, but his vitals are strong and we’re optimistic.”

 

The sheer relief is so overwhelming that Kayo thinks she might pass out,

 

“He’s still alive?”

 

“Yes he is.”

 

“Can I see him?”

 

“That’s why I’m here,” Dr Wong says.

 

*

 

The sight of Scott in an intensive care ward is terrifying. He’s always been a Presence, even when they were kids. Always towered over her, laughed the loudest, smiled the brightest, and now in a hospital bed, half hidden under wires and tubes and monitors he looks tiny and frail, his skin ashen under his South Pacific perma-tan. The less rational part of Kayo’s brain is scared that his hand will crumble to dust as she takes it, but it stays solid as she squeezes it, sitting down in the chair beside his bed.

 

“You said something about his back?” she asks, turning to look at Dr Wong, who has followed her into the room.

 

“Yes, the bullet did some spinal damage,” the surgeon explains, “Nothing permanent but it’s quite serious. It’s going to take a lot of work.”

 

“That’s okay,” Kayo says, looking back at Scott, “he’s strong.”

 

“Yes he is,” Dr Wong agrees, smiling, “I’ll leave you two alone.”

 

“Doctor,” Kayo asks, looking back over her shoulder, “Can he hear me?”

 

In the doorway Dr Wong hesitates,

 

“I can’t say for certain, but it’s very likely, yes,” she says.

 

Kayo turns back to Scott as the door clicks closed, not really sure what to say. For a moment she wishes she’d accepted her father’s offer to come in with her, but she already knows what he would say

 

_ Say what’s in your heart. _

 

“I’m here,” she says, squeezing Scott’s hand. 

 

She stands up to kiss him, hesitating slightly since she can’t kiss his lips while the ventilator tube is still in place, so instead she settles for his cheek, keeping tight hold of his hand as she does.

 

“I love you,” she says.

 

And though she’s exhausted and emotional and overwhelmed, she’s almost certain that he squeezes her hand right back.


	3. Chapter 3

There’s something in his mouth. It’s dry and plasticy and it’s scratching the back of his throat. He wants it gone, but he doesn’t seem to have hands any more. 

 

Or legs.

 

Or a body.

 

Or even eyes that he can open.

 

He’s just a sore throat, and the distant sound of beeping.

 

*

 

“Scott?”

 

The thing is gone from his mouth, but his eyelids are still too heavy to open fully,

 

“Scott can you hear me?”

 

It’s Mom.

 

“Is he waking up?”

 

“He seems to be conscious at the moment, yes.”

 

It’s Mom and someone else.

 

A boy.

 

A brother.

 

Virgil?

 

John?

 

“Scott, I’m Doctor Abdul, if you can hear me, squeeze my hand.”

 

There’s something wrong with the words Mom is saying, but he can’t figure it out with his brain so slow and fuzzy. 

 

He’s vaguely aware of pressure in his palm,

 

“Squeeze my hand Scott.”

 

He’s so tired, but Mom makes it sound important so he puts all the effort he can into closing his fist around her hand.

 

“Well done Scott!” Mom says, and he tries to smile at making her sound pleased, but squeezing her hand has exhausted him, so he goes back to sleep.

 

*

 

“Allie get rid of that bird”Scott says.

 

“It’s not a bird, it’s your dressing gown on a chair” Alan says patiently, as though he hasn’t already had this conversation three times in the past hour.

 

“I can  _ see  _ it Allie!”

 

“Cuz you’re on a shit load of  _ morphine _ Scott” Alan replies calmly as he flicks through Scott’s medical chart.

 

“But I can _see_ _it!_ ” Scott insists, as though repetition will make it so.

 

Alan sighs and gets up to move the dressing gown,

 

“Go back to sleep Scott,” he says, knowing that next time around his brother will have no memory of any of this.

  
“Alright,” Scott nods, and closes his eyes.


	4. Chapter 4

He’s awake.

 

It’s ten days since the shooting and for the first time his eyes are in focus and his memory is lasting more than ten minutes, and he doesn’t need sleep after an hour of interaction.

 

And because the universe owes her some serious kindness, Kayo is there to see his eyes open.

 

“Hello” she says, taking his hand as she moves from the chair to perch on the bed.

 

“Hi” he says, trying to sit up before an unbearable wave of nausea hits him, “Oh God I’m gonna throw up.”

 

“That’s the pain killers” Kayo explains, gently pressing on his shoulder to get him to lie back down, “Laying down is better.”

 

“Yeah,” he agrees, looking slowly around the room as he starts to fully come round.

 

He’s in a hospital bed, not the island infirmary. Mission gone wrong? No, he was at a party wasn’t he? 

 

He frowns with effort as he tries to remember why he’s here and Kayo, wonderful, perfect Kayo, who always knows exactly what he’s thinking prompts him gently,

 

“Someone shot you Scott,” she says.

 

“Was it you?” he jokes with a mischievous smile, expecting her to laugh. And she should, because his sense of humour is still there, and that’s a relief, but the quip has hit far too close to home. 

 

It  _ is _ her fault, even if John won’t accept her resignation. She wakes up each night in a cold sweat as in her dreams she  _ is _ the gunman. She might as well have pulled the trigger herself if all of this could have been prevented by her doing a better job.

 

She doesn’t realise she’s crying until he squeezes her hand,

 

“Hey now, don’t cry!” he soothes, “I’m okay see, I’m right here.”

 

She’s glad he can’t see how frail he looks right now, the nearly two week semi-coma reducing him to the skinny rake he hasn’t been since he was fifteen. Not knowing that is what keeps his voice steady and confident, and as she curls gingerly into his side, for fear of damaging him, she closes her eyes and takes comfort in that unchanging voice even if the rest of him is drastically different.

 

“It’s going to take a lot more than that to kill me, Kay, I promise.”


	5. Chapter 5

His injury is... frustrating. Any relief at being alive and awake and mentally competent after the oxygen deprivation is quickly replaced by an odd sense of anger at the extent of his injuries. Obviously there’s the spinal damage which his doctors are telling him isn’t as severe as they first feared but will still need extensive physical therapy, but also there are the irritating extra injuries too, the ones that come hand in hand with such a serious event.

His right hand is misbehaving thanks to a trapped nerve he seems to have acquired in the rush to the car and his chest aches every time he shifts too suddenly, his broken ribs from the CPR protesting every movement, although each time Kayo kisses him and apology it makes that a little better. Worst of all he’s having memory blanks and struggling to remember the names of basic things like cups or the bed or his watch. Alan might find it funny watching Scott struggle through “the thing... for your hand... tells you when it is” but for him it’s terrifying not being able to express himself.

He still feels guilty for taking his fear out on his little brother, but on the plus side the sedatives they gave him to calm him down and stop him shouting were pretty sweet. And with them comes Doctor Abdul again to gently explain that the forgetfulness and the mood swings should pass, merely temporary side effects of the week long induced coma they’d put him in. Really the guilt comes because Alan won’t let him apologise, doesn’t even seem to be mad at him really, already calmer and more understanding than men twice his age, and Scott begins to feel guilty for far different reasons.

The only time he really feels calm is when Kayo is there. She makes a habit of visiting in the early mornings so she can be with him when he wakes up, as if she knows about that bolt of anxious uncertainty that weighs on him in the first few minutes of consciousness every day. Just looking over to see her sitting in the chair by his bed calms him almost instantly, despite everything she’s said in the three weeks since his injury, her own fears of being unable to protect him, he still has complete faith in her, she makes him feel safe.

The one frustrating thing about Kayo though is she won’t let him wallow in his own self-pity, no matter how much he wants her to. She calms him when he despairs over it taking him three days to be able to sit up without vomiting, sits impassively as she waits out his frustrated rage at requiring another two days to build up the strength to stand using a frame. He knows she loves him, that she cares about his pain, but she also knows how he works, and pity or coddling are not the way to get Scott Tracy to do anything. He’s always responded best to tough love, which a shrink would probably have a few things to say about, but he doesn’t need to pay someone four hundred dollars an hour to tell him that he’s seeking his father’s approval.

It’s his dad he’s thinking about one day, early into his rehabilitation when he’s ninety minutes into Dan the physio patiently asking him to try and move his right foot and his right foot being completely uncooperative. In a desperate move he tries to get his body to comply by hurling himself forward and hoping his legs will magically remember what to do. Which is how he ends up on the floor, embarrassed and close to tears.

Up until now Kayo has been sat quietly at the side of the room, just keeping an eye on his progress, but now she stands, waving off Dan as he moves to help Scott up so that she can sit beside him on the floor.

“You know if you’re going to throw yourself on the ground every time this gets a little tough it’s going to take a lot longer than you want it to,” she says in that calm authoritative tone that always makes her sound like her dad.

“Dad was walking by now,” Scott says, still unable to get his father’s recovery out of his head.

“Your father was just sick and weak,” she points out, “He just needed to get stronger again and two years on he’s still walking with a stick. You have a serious injury that needs to heal. You can’t compare what happened to him with what happened to you.”

“Yeah,” he says, eyeing the wheelchair lurking behind him like some kind of childhood nightmare, “You’re right.”

“But?” Kayo prompts,

“But what?” he asks, looking back at her.

“There’s something else,” she says, taking his hand, “I know that look.”

He looks back at the chair again; more afraid than he knows is rational,

“What if I’m in that thing forever?”

“Then we’ll make it work” she promises, kissing his cheek before she stands up, “Ready to go again?”

Scott nods as Dan the physio comes back over to help Kayo get him off the floor,

“Yeah,” he says, “I’m ready.”


	6. Chapter 6

“Remember when we used to have sex?”

Kayo glances up from her novel to look at where Scott is floating aimlessly in the pool,

“Aren’t you supposed to be swimming laps?” she asks, putting down her book so she can sit up and look at him properly,

“Because I don’t.”

“Gordon’s going to be cross at you if he comes out here and finds out you’re not doing your laps.”

“I mean I know that we did”

“He worked very hard on this physical therapy regime.”

“But at this point it’s more theoretical knowledge than actual memory you know?”

“He’s probably going to make you drink two of those kale smoothies as a punishment.”

“So I thought I’d better just check that it actually did used to happen or if it was all just another morphine hallucination.”

Not even the threat of a double dose of Gordon’s vile superfood sludge is enough to get him to focus again, so Kayo sighs and forces herself up off the sun lounger to go and sit at the edge of the pool,

“Do you want to have sex?” she asks, more out of academic interest than as any kind of offer.

“Not even a little bit” Scott sighs, staring glumly up at the perfectly cloudless sky. Kayo wants to laugh at the slight absurdity of him, but she knows that’ll just make him sulk.

“That’s okay you know, you’ve been through a lot.”

“I know,” he says, “But you’re sat there in that tiny little bikini and you just look incredible,”

“Thank you” she interjects,

“You really do, and I know that you do and there’s still just nothing there and it’s so....” he trails off in a frustrated huff.

“It’s just another reminder that something’s wrong with you” Kayo finishes.

“Exactly!” he says, sitting up in the water. He’s more confident in the pool; the water helps him to have far better mobility than he would out of it. “Just another way my body’s letting me down.”

“This is more of a psychological thing than a physical one though” Kayo points out.

“My brain’s still part of my body” he points out.

Kayo concedes the point as she slips into the pool and crosses to him in a few easy strokes, pressing herself against him and entwining her arms around his neck as she kisses him deeply,

“Well maybe you just need some encouragement then” she says, giving him a teasing smile

“That sounds like a great idea” he says, returning the smile as he leans in to kiss her again, slowly running his hands up the curve of her back, acting more out of habit than actual interest.

Just as he’s about to reach the ties of her bikini top she pulls away from him, setting out for the far end of the pool.

“Come on then, just eighteen more lengths to go,” she calls, laughing as he pouts in utter betrayal.

“You’re a very mean lady” he calls as he starts to follow after her, moving a little stiffly after having stopped for too long.

“Be mad at me all you like” she laughs, “You won’t be as cross as Gordon will when he finds out you haven’t done 40 lengths yet.”

Kayo is proved right a few minutes later when Gordon walks out onto the terrace.

“How you doing?” he calls

“Forty five!” Scott yells back,

“Twenty five” Kayo corrects, ignoring the glare she knows she’s getting from Scott as she swims to the poolside to gratefully accept the glass of ice tea that Gordon has made for her.

“Clearly you’re very tired,” Gordon tells his older brother sarcastically, “So you can have a break now and drink the smoothie I made you and then you can have another one after you finish.”

Kayo can’t help laughing at the pitiful look on Scott’s face as he swims up beside her.

“Snitch” he grumbles, splashing her. But any upset is just for show and he can’t help but smile as she splashes him back. He’s finally kind of happy for the first time in three months, and that’s the biggest piece of progress he’s made so far.


	7. Chapter 7

Recovery is slow and often inconsistent. Some days he’s making it all the way down the support rails in the gym without any help, other days he can barely stand up out of the wheelchair long enough to take a single step. He’s climbed mountains, thrown himself off cliffs, run into radioactive mineshafts and burning buildings, and this is still the hardest thing he’s ever done, the eleven long months of rest and exercises and physio that he hopes will get him back out on missions again one day. For now though he has a much more achievable goal.

His brothers are happy to pitch in for anything that Scott needs them to do, especially if it’s not health related. Eleven months on from the shooting he’s relentlessly focused on getting mission fit again. Long gone are the days of Gordon or John having to bully him into doing his exercises. These days it’s Alan and Virgil forcing him to take more breaks. So when he gathers them together with his plan for Kayo’s birthday they’re all enthusiastically on board.

Gordon has filled the pool terrace with candles, Alan has set the table, strewn with flower petals gathered from around the villa and carefully curated a playlist of all of Kayo’s favourite songs, John and Penelope are on the mainland keeping the birthday girl occupied and, in what Scott believes may just be the greatest act of brotherly devotion he’s ever shown, Virgil even lets Scott backseat chef as he prepares the kind of meal that would make some of the world’s finest chefs green with envy.

The scene is perfectly set in the dusk light as Kayo walks out onto the deck, the house is curiously quiet with the rest of the family making themselves scarce for this moment and if he’s honest the silence as she takes in the view makes Scott a little nervous sitting at the candlelit table in a suit that’s still a little too big for him after the weight loss.

“Oh Scott,” she beams, coming further out onto the deck “What a great surprise!”

Except that the dinner isn’t her surprise, well not her main surprise any way. That comes as Scott leans heavily on the table, and in a slow, laboured way, pushes himself to his feet.

He can see the concern in her eyes as she takes another step towards him, but as he lets go of the table and remains standing she stops, shocked into stillness.

“Oh my God!” she breathes.

“Surprise!” He grins as he takes two shuffling steps towards her, though he’s secretly a little grateful when she meets him halfway and he can rest his hand on her shoulder for support.

“How long have you been keeping this from me?” Kayo asks, still utterly amazed at the sight of him standing and walking unaided.

“Few weeks” Scott shrugs, trying to pretend it wasn’t as big a deal as they both knew it to be.

“You sly dog,” she grins, stretching up to kiss him.

“I wanted to be able to stand here on your birthday,” he said fishing the remote for the sound system out of his pocket, pressing a button to change the song, “And ask you, may I have this dance?”

Kayo laughs as he gives her his best seductive smile, she hasn’t seen that in a long time,

“Well since you asked so nicely” she says offering out her hand,

“Fair warning, you’ll have to lead” he jokes, “I’m still not totally great on my feet.”

“I’ll look after you,” she promises, letting him rest his hand on her shoulder as they start to slow dance.

“Good birthday?” he prompts,

“The best birthday” she agrees.

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written as a birthday gift for the lovely Red and she's said I can post it publicly.


End file.
